May 2007 Black Alumni Network newsletter, Volume 27, No. 5
By Wayne Dawkins
Shock jock Don Imus built a multi-platformed media colossus on the backs of newsmakers – often women and people of color – that he slimed with racist, sexist venom. Yet media elites like Tim Russert and Jeff Greenfield, and presidential hopefuls such as Hilary Clinton, John McClain and Rudy Giuliani loved to get booked on Imus’ radio show, broadcast on CBS and simulcast on MSNBC.
With so much juice, how then, geniuses of mass media wondered incredulously, could Imus be taken down by 10 adolescent women from Rutgers University?
The answers: In calling the women “nappy headed ho’s” the morning of April 4, Imus crossed a line of decency even shock jocks must recognize. You can say ugly, inappropriate things about the famous and powerful; they have big shoulders, but don’t kick little people when they’re down.
For even the most jaded Americans, an underdog sentiment tugs at their souls. The predominantly black Rutgers team battled valiantly against a superior and frequent champion University of Tennessee team on April 3.
Those nappy headed girls — hair braided and twisted for the court battle with the Lady Volunteers — fought like warriors, and no one, especially a crusty, old white man, had any business calling them whores without proof.
Imus’ “nappy headed” reference was supposed to be a clever racial putdown, like a former Arizona Gov. Evan Meacham’s habit calling black folk “pickaninnies” while vowing in 1990 to deny a state holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
In Imus’ case, the fighting words he could not escape was the “ho” reference.
The shock jock assumed he had permission to say that. Shucks, black hip-hop performers like Snoop Dog, Ludacris and others spout the slur effortlessly, like breathing. Well guess what? A coalition of the willing – black journalists, civil rights leaders, consumers of all colors and business executives — said enough, and in a week, Imus was fired, and the most prominent names in hip hop had to wonder if the infrastructure of their 15-year-old empire was serious cracked and in risk of crumbling.
A shining moment
For full disclosure, I am a member of the seven-member National Association of Black Journalists Media Monitoring committee. After some e-mail exchanges and talks with President Bryan Monroe on April 5, NABJ put out a statement Friday morning, April 6 condemning Imus’ sexist, racist screed, and asked that he be fired by Monday.
This was no easy feat. NABJ is a 4,000-member association and the largest bloc of members is working journalists who have to show neutrality when they’re on the job. Yet Imus’ behavior was about unacceptable media practices, not racial advocacy. NABJ was on rock-solid ground to unequivocally shock the radio jock. “Has he lost his mind?” association President Bryan Monroe asked in an April 6 statement. “Those comments were beyond offensive. Imus needs to be fired. Today.”
Bryan Monroe When an NABJ member asked on our listserv April 13 if contextually there were comparable moments when the association roared, I offered these moments:
In the case of Abu-Jamal case, which made many NABJers squirm, walking through that fire a dozen years ago apparently taught many NABJ leaders how to draft an airtight indictment in the Imus case.
Where y’all at?
Like the new Wynton Marsalis tune “Where Y’all At?” that challenges Baby Boomers to speak up, NABJ members wondered out loud on the association’s Internet bulletin board, “where is NOW?” In 24 hours, leaders of women’s groups chimed in.
UNITY partners like the National Association of Hispanic Journalists joined the battle.
Embattled Imus began apologizing on his radio show beginning at dawn on Good Friday, and he traveled to the studio of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show Monday. Sharpton was not appeased by Imus’ begging. The minister demanded the radio host’s resignation.
Wounded, Imus said he’s not a wild-eyed bigot; he’s a good person who said a bad thing. Media pundit apologists missed this point: Many blacks know that smiling smooth talkers, loaded with smug institutionalized racist ideas and platforms, are more dangerous than inarticulate louts with little power.
Media pundit apologists missed this point: Smiling smooth talkers, loaded with smug institutionalized racist ideas and platforms, are dangerous
Seven years ago, reported NPR and other sources, guest Clarence Page of Chicago Tribune asked Imus to take a non-binding oath that he stop making simian references to blacks on his shows, and stop referring to innocent black men as malt-liquor swilling criminals. Page was not invited back on Imus’ show. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9462870
The calls for Imus’ head would not abate. On April 10, the day after the shock jock’s apology tour to Harlem. Gwen Ifill, host of “Washington Week in Review” on PBS, wrote a New York Times op-ed piece to clear the record. When critics like Philip Nobile recited Imus’ rap sheet of racist, sexist putdowns, Imus denied a charge that in 1998 he said, “Isn’t The Times wonderful. It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House,” reported Lars-Erik Nelson in the New York Daily News back then.
“I haven’t talked about this much,” wrote Ifill. “I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio DJ’s juvenile slap will define or scar me.
“Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me. It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.”
Still, the apologizers as late as April 10 were still insisting that Imus could be redeemed. As Tim Russert noted on Meet the Press April 15, Imus was inducted in the broadcast Hall of Fame in the mid-‘90s and newsweeklies trumpeted “The importance of being Imus” in 1999. The shock jock was an icon so how could he fall? Ifill, and Eugene Robinson, guests Russert’s show, explain why Imus went down. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
Advertisers withdraw
On April 11, Staples the office supply chain, was the first advertiser to pull the plug on Imus.
Soon, other advertisers withdrew like a draining sink.
MSNBC, one of Imus’ networks, announced that same day that it now longer broadcast his show. “This decision,” said the statement, “comes as the result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension [by CBS]. It also takes into account many conversations with our own employees.”
Employees including Paula Madison, a top manager, and usually jovial Al Roker, who sounded like a ‘60s militant. So what about CBS employees and bosses? On April 13, Imus was dismissed by CBS. He broke the cardinal rule, thou shalt not demean paying customers, and aren’t black folk the most brand-loyal Americans of all?
It’s poetic justice that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch correspondent Ron Thomas’ analysis about the hurricane that formed and hit so fast was wrapped around a Verizon advertisement in my local newspaper. Verizon is a brand that wholesomely targets black consumers, and one of its most recognized executives was Bruce Gordon, an African-American, who happens to be a member of the CBS board. Harris’ reporting beat the pants off dozens of Rolodex-challenged reports stating bewilderment about the Imus storm. Rolodex challenged because so many stories prominently quoted Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Why? Conspiratorial types might say that Sharpton and Jackson could be attacked as hypocrites, reference the 1984 “Hymietown” rant by Jackson, and Sharpton losing a defamation lawsuit for slandering a prosecutor during the Tawana Brawley sexual assault case.
Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Betty Winston Baye wondered, if the Imus story is about demeaning black women, when didn’t journalists seek out the dozens of black women leaders who run corporations, universities and small businesses? www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070412/COLUMNISTS09/704120332/1021
Hip-Hoppers lose the beat?
Imus is gone, but the story is not over. This question justifiably was repeatedly asked: If hip hop stars sling the words “ho” and “bitch” routinely, shouldn’t they be called to account? Actually they had been confronted for years inside black America, but now the criticism was presented on a bigger stage and the show got bizarre.
In an attempt to “clarify,” Snoop Dog told MTV that rappers “Are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about the ho’s that’s in the hood that ain’t don’t [expletive], that’s trying to get a [slur for blacks] for his money.” Oh. Thanks Snoop for clearing that up.
And Russell Simmons’ CEO of Def Jam Records said “People who are angry, uneducated and come from tremendous struggle, they have poetic license and they say things that offend you.” Simmons was criticizing Presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who was challenged by constituents in black America to say something about the hip hop pathology.
Simmons is a mealy mouth. While he talks about the angry and poor he’s the darling of the Vanity Fair crowd. Check out his photo spreads in the upscale mag? Hey, no hatin’ here. In America you have a right to rub shoulders with the rich and make money. But as Sharpton said in February at Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union, angry, uneducated black folk during the ‘50s and ‘60s were not singing about “Ho’s in the back of the bus.”
It’s OK to be oppressed yet have a sense of decency, and dignity.
Don Imus was jettisoned from CBS and MSNBC but he will probably reappear soon at another outlet. Imus was the lightning rod for 1½ weeks of saturation coverage, yet he’s not the real issue. The real deal is are we ready destroy misogynist rap lyrics that have made our community ill for too long, and are we also ready to bring more civility to the public square? And yes, those are free-speech issues too.